Old Dnosauria

Saturday, January 01, 2005

New Years 04/05 - A Change of Scene

[Life] New year, new city, new people...

(Continues...)

I've been returning to Canberra for NYE to party privately with the crew for the last couple of years. Funny how when I mention that people get a strange look on their faces & can only ask 'Jeeez, why?'. The answer is easy; why fight the hordes to get to the bar for a drink, why build the night up to be something that'll never live up to expectations, why surround yourself with people who really couldn't give a rat's ass about anything other than their next drink & whether they're going to pick up the skank two tables over? Why go through all the bullshit that comes with going out when you can get together with a bunch of people you can have fun with anywhere anytime.

This year we gathered in Adelaide. With T-bone & Cheese's wedding here on Friday and with some already here to spend xmas with their families it was kinda inevitable. Miss K booked us the boardroom in the Pepper Tree Restaurant in The Daniel O'Connell Hotel in North Adelaide. For $45 we had a kick-ass three-course dinner, and being in SA we were spoilt for choice when it came to wines. Sally, who doesn't do wine, ordered firetrucks by the jug, with only one glass.

There were a few new faces in the room this time around; Sally, back from Africa for a bit, Kombiman & Em, and Liv & Pat. Despite being kinda new to the regular crew, the newly-engaged Pat was more than happy to take care of the only nudie run of the evening. Such a sharing caring dude.

As with the last couple of years, I had made up a bunch of mixes as the soundtrack to the night, but left them in my (very average*) hotel room. I guess it wasn't meant to be anyway; the room's CD player was busted anyway, so we tuned in to one of the cloned network FM stations which turned out to have an OK playlist anyway. There was plenty of singing & a bit of dancing too.

When we were kicked out of the boardroom somewhere just short of 2am, we moved over to the casino where the punters hit the blackjack & roulette tables, until the call for hotdogs went out somewhere around 4 or 5.

Wandering back to the Plaza from the casino I discovered that Hindley St had taken a dive (if diving further than normal is possible for that end of the street) and was full of fighting drunks, paddy wagons and mounted police. According to the guy at the front desk, this year was tame; the last couple of years apparently saw Hindley St so full of people that you couldn't see from one side to the other.

Being woken this morning at 11.30 by housekeeping banging on the door & then barging in wasn't the nicest start to the year. Burgers and a lunchtime session of The Incredibles (which was) fixed that though.

Hope you had as good a night as I.

* - I can tolerate the crappy room. It's only two nights then I'm checking into to something that I'm sure will be much nicer.

More Adelaide updates to follow, with photos once I find a net cafe where I can use my CF card reader.